28 theory. He was never taken by surprise when the impossible happened. His extraordinary knowledge enabled him to be intelligently incredulous on an encyclopedic range of topICS. Van An- da's handling of the first dispatch on the sinking of the Titanic is an illustra- tion. The Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable. All great ocean liners were supposed to be unsinkable. Everyone had seen charts and photographs show- ing how, if anything made a hole in one section of the ship, the other sections could be completely sealed up, so that sinking was impossible. Most editors believed this. They discounted the first dispatches as exaggerations. The theory of the Titanic's unsinkability did not weigh for a second in Van ..A.nda's mind against the news. Other editors playe4 the first report on the Titanic as a du- bious rumor ; Van Anda covered the front page of the Times with it. Van Anda never worried about the public. He seemed to get out the Times as if he were its only reader. He played the news according to its interest to him- self. Some editors claim a foreknow- ledge of the public reaction to any type of news. You hear them say, "The bl o d ' b h . " " I pu IC oesn t care a out t IS or t will eat up this kind of stuff ." Van Anda was his own public. He catered to his own enthusiasms. The mind- reading and pulse-taking type of editor never could have guessed that the pub- .)., .- " k;; ,:-:-:. r ..... "" u i !; ' ., .: :: ' , " ., ' . . . , . , ' . w , . , : . L . , . : ; , ' , ':i , ' , ' :, : . : . :, , :9, , > . : , , . :, : . ' , j. " , . . " , . . , " ;/ i ' ,: - ' \,ft, , t , ' ' > " " ':' ' ., ' .'::.' '.; . iID / fl -i ;1 / , 1t; :, V);:; jJ ', Jr . ; '" ' '" ; /'X ' J !" .. , , 'i ', ' \- if Í;Þ i \; >,u,' : ' .,':. \ , ' /:r: ! ", : '..., ,"'" \" "," "Î '^ ) k ' /: J,:t ì ) ' ' 1 ,4:q ---., .: \.\ ,- ; :: I ' t! ",* \ , ;;, W' Jt'. J ,,1 .. .... "' ','.. ..,' f . , , \,'\ 1"" " *" , ;/ ;" l /< i lt i' ,< < , ! : J, '\. "* ,- t \ ".-It : t. . ? :::.. .' ::5. ;;::.. , g:}:::":" ,',:. :I;:: ,. '. ::; !'" , ,:.;& ., '" ',' .... .' .., : :::''''',<,::; .:' ,'".\:::.:.i}:-:," r: . :-:::.... y .:':' , :':: "':i-::f:t.- : '::.?:.::: ......::.-==- m r: : :;::;: ;.:-:.:. '.;:. :..:::'''' i ' . .. ;<::, j-, i' I, ,;: o ,< -x l \f ,,1" 't /? ] , '/''\ r'lI' ' ' 'J', , 'W ow; ,.,:. r{';' 'l" "'::x' ..... .' -1:':- , '; ! '. :' , :: "", 'i::: 4;: .: - ,',' .'.. :::: ... ./f':;;);. '\ ..; :< -"AA_:;;;: Ji I f);f' l : ; v: è 4< :>i>' "'" * l ,-",! : t ; . l J --:" ,? { . -,) ::1;;i1i1$ryr J. i{: :\ \ '- . ::ß#!ft. cCWell, anyhow, you n ust ad7nit you've been violating' the spirit if not the letter of the law." . SEPTEMDER 7, 1 935 lic would go crazy over an un-under- stand ble theory or a 3,200-year-old tomb. Van Anda did not worry about what the public liked and he did not worry about what was good for the public. When Congress, ten years ago, threw open the income-tax lists, many editors and publishers did not want to print them. They considered it bad policy to spread this colossal sucker list before the racketeers of the nation. Some newspapers made sanctimonious announcements to the effect that they would not invade any man's privacy by printing income-tax information. Van Anda particularly despised newspaper- men who regarded themselves as vil- lage librarians supervising the reading matter of the public. He sent half a dozen reporters to the Custom House to get the income-tax figures. The be- wildered Internal Revenue Collector refused to open his books to the army of Times men. He demanded that the l'imes draw up a list of the names and submit it to him. Van Anda handed a reporter a copy of the New York Telephone Book. "Give this to the Collector," he said, "and tell him we want the figures on every man, but this will do as a preliminary list." The Times ran income-tax figures by the page. The papers which had at first virtuously refused to print the news fell into line apologetically a day or two later. Van Anda did much to free the Times from the grip of typographical superstitions, from obsolete rules of English and from the Godey's Lady's Book standards of good taste. During the war, the Times printed a long and stirring narrative of the adventures of the German raider Emden. Van Anda wrote over it "The Wanderers of the Emden; Their Epic Tale." It was an inspired headline, but it committed three fearful crimes. V. A. had started a headline with a "The;" he had written a headline without a verb; he had dI- vided it with a semicolon. On three counts he was guilty of high treason against journalistic pedantry. I twas years before some of the learned author- ities on headline-writing quit their mut- tering and sneering over this. The Emden case was only one of many sim- ilar malefactions. If newspaper rules were penal laws, Van Anda would have had a police record a mile long. In fact, this was one of Van Anda's great contributions. He saved the Times from the form of journalistic arteriosclerosis which sets in when unintelligent rules and regulations are allowed to multip]y.